*     _                           ____            _       _ 
 *    / \   ___ _   _ _ __   ___  / ___|  ___ _ __(_) __ _| |
 *   / _ \ / __| | | | '_ \ / __| \___ \ / _ \ '__| |/ _` | |
 *  / ___ \\__ \ |_| | | | | (__   ___) |  __/ |  | | (_| | |
 * /_/   \_\___/\__, |_| |_|\___| |____/ \___|_|  |_|\__,_|_|
 *              |___/    
 * 
 * AsyncSerial
 *
 * @version
 *  1.0 beta (November 25th 2012)
 *
 * @discussion
 *  An external object for Max/MSP on Mac OSX that interfaces
 *  with serial devices. This is intended to provide more useful
 *  functionality than the built-in [serial] object. Namely, 
 *  [AsyncSerial] listens for incoming data on a separate thread
 *  and spits it out whenever it arrives. It does not need to be
 *  polled. This is similar to how UDPReceive works. Similar care
 *  must be taken when dealing with multithreaded Max-patches.
 *  [AsyncSerial] can also have its input buffer flushed,
 *  which is necessary when sending commands to a device and 
 *  awaiting a reply. [AsyncSerial] can also be put in and out
 *  of 'canonical' input mode, in which data is only spit out once
 *  a newline char '\n' is received, which is useful for parsing
 *  text-based replies. [AsyncSerial] also allows users to set 
 *  VMIN and VTIME, as described in the unix manual, sub verbo 
 *  'termios':
 *
 *  man termios
 *
 *  [AsyncSerial] cannot be polled using 'bang', because, depending 
 *  on VMIN, VTIME and ICANON, that could cause the main thread to
 *  hang.
 *  
 *  [AsyncSerial] can either output received data as a sequence 
 *   of bytes, as [serial] does, or as a list of text symbols, which
 *   is useful with canonic input processing.
 *
 * @author
 *  Written by Michael Krzyzaniak at Arizona State 
 *  University's School of Arts, Media + Engineering
 *  in Fall of 2012.
 *
 *  mkrzyzan@asu.edu